"Put the armored boot to that mother..."

Knights of the Round is a hard game to try and explain other than giving you a reference to Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Giving you three characters to choose from, you have the ability to go back in time and play through a side scrolling adventure with King Arthur, Lancelot or Percival, kicking dragon ass and taking names in the process. The story line is something out of myth, in which you much go through the game and try to recover a grail that will grant the holder power over Briton. Interesting to say the least, this is a game that all Final Fight players and fans will enjoy!

The Game Play

Side scrolling beat down action, you've got three characters to choose from, all of which have a wide variety of moves that can be used to smash out the different enemy gang members that come rushing your way! Attacking makes for interesting combinations, and you can pick up different items to aid yourself in the quest for vengeance as well as smash out different objects to uncover point modifiers and food to increase your life gauge after you've taken some damage. Unlike Final Fight though, your moves do not really vary on whom you use, but rather the power at which they are given.

Where Lancelot is quick, he is also extremely weak and Percival is the strongest of the three. With this being said, the boss battles that you encounter take a little bit of strategy and time, but the rewards come when you’ve beaten up enough opponents and your characters level up in a way that makes them stronger and faster in some senses. The further you get into the game though, the more you have to learn how to use the attacks effectively, or else the enemies will overwhelm you in each area. When you finally do get to the bosses, you might want to use the hit and run tactics in order to really get out from under an ass-kicking.

The control is easy enough to figure out without having to get too technical. You use the attack button to launch your attacks on your targets, or you can jump and attack for a quick knock down blow. You can walk into your target, grab them and then proceed to administer a hellicious beat down that looks rather cool and does some wicked damage! The key to the control is knowing when to advance into a group of thugs, and when to step back and away. Gamers who have experience with the way that the Super Nintendo controller works will find that the game moves pretty slow and the controller moves just as slow as your inputs do.

The Visuals

Clean and very detailed, every character is designed and created with 'realism' in mind, and it doesn't squelch on the amount of speed and detail used either it be in long range or short quarters combat! You'll find though that there are cases of noticeable break up and in some cases, when you have too many characters on screen, a bit of game slowdown! The backgrounds and environments all have plenty of detail and a lot of thought put into them and the characters that you take on have some pretty interesting ways of moving across the screen and attacking you when you least expect it.

The Audio

A pretty upbeat soundtrack keeps to the games tempo and pace at a steady clip. However, you'll notice that the changes in the music come from stage to stage, but you'll find that the music all has the same type of beat or tempo to it that makes it rather bland after about thirty minutes or so! The sound effects are a little strange to listen to as well, with the grunts and groans coming out as a little on the high side, and explosions, bone crunching thuds and body smashing thumps all round out the audio section!

The Verdict

Knights of the Round is a game that you can enjoy if you’re into those simple side scrolling games that really have nothing to do other than pound whatever is unfriendly. Though the game seems extremely hard, anyone can play through on a couple of bucks and the ending is definitely worth taking a look at. For those Final Fight purists, this is as close as a clone as you can get without it having the Final Fight name attached to it and it is worth spending some money on if you’re up for some simple head bashing action!